MediaRap

After an investigation that lasted over a year, Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, rules on how Facebook handles some 12 million (over one-third of the Canada’s population) Canadian users’ private information. This ruling is likely to set global precedent and could possibly benefit Facebook’s 200 million users worldwide, as privacy officials in Europe and Australia have also begun their own investigations.

Rather than go to court, Facebook agreed to work with the privacy department and make some changes. Of major concern was the third-party developer issue. Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, stated that "We were alarmed by the lack of adequate safeguards to effectively restrict developers from accessing users' personal information, as well as the information of their online friends". She added that "The notion that some teenager working in a basement halfway around the globe could have access to all of this personal information was unsettling to say the least". The new changes will help prevent applications from accessing personal information of users and their friends without their “express consent”.

The changes include:

• Implementing new controls on the Facebook site to limit the personal information that an estimated one million worldwide developers could access.

• Making it clear to users that there is a difference between ‘deleting’ an account and ‘deactivating’ it.

• The company will permanently delete the personal information of Facebook users who have already deactivated their accounts

Denham said that it will likely take Facebook about a year to make these changes.